4 ms·

Hi luckylion, My name is Shane, and my co-founder is August. We did an indie hackers interview about Cronitor a few years ago and we’ve been pretty active here

Hi luckylion, My name is Shane, and my co-founder is August. We did an indie hackers interview about Cronitor a few years ago and we’ve been pretty active here on HN. I’m happy to answer any questions you have.

luckylion 7y ago
I guess the only question is: why are you not actively communicating who is behind the tool? The impression it gives me is that either you don't want your names attached to the project, or that you fear that attaching your names to the project would hurt prospects. Or is it just an oversight and you didn't intend to run the service anonymously?
- encoderer 7y ago
  On day one when we launched Cronitor (in 2014) I was a Sr Engineer at a tech company and August was the 1st Engineer at a YC-funded startup. Neither of us wanted to trade on that for our side project. Over the years, as Cronitor grew into a successful business, we've shared a lot about it publicly with our names attached but I never felt a calling to put our faces on a webpage. I have always been more eager to collect customer testimonials and share what they have to say about us. Maybe I'm just shy.
  - luckylion 7y ago
    It's not even about putting your face onto it, that's understandable. It's just that there's nothing. Sure, you can dig around, find the termly-page and then at the end find some info, but that looks so scammy to me, while the rest of the page doesn't give me that vibe at all. Typically, I associate "we don't tell you who we are" with grey/black stuff. A DDOS service would only provide an email address for obvious reasons. But for a company? If somebody wants to sue you, they will find out who you are in any case. I wouldn't expect pictures, CVs etc, but a contact page that doesn't list a company/individual name and a street address triggers two feelings: a) scam or b) run from a bedroom. Neither makes me want to trust you with critical infrastructure (and here's where I'm irrational: seeing a company name and address is enough, unless there's some suspicion, I won't even dig into it to see whether the company or address actually exists). As I mentioned, it's not specific to you at all, a lot of SaaS companies do this, and I don't understand it. Might be a cultural thing. In Germany, you're breaking the law if you're running a commercial site and are not clearly stating who you are, so maybe that's why alarms are ringing in my head when I don't see it.

luckylion 7y ago

I guess the only question is: why are you not actively communicating who is behind the tool? The impression it gives me is that either you don't want your names attached to the project, or that you fear that attaching your names to the project would hurt prospects. Or is it just an oversight and you didn't intend to run the service anonymously?

encoderer 7y ago
On day one when we launched Cronitor (in 2014) I was a Sr Engineer at a tech company and August was the 1st Engineer at a YC-funded startup. Neither of us wanted to trade on that for our side project. Over the years, as Cronitor grew into a successful business, we've shared a lot about it publicly with our names attached but I never felt a calling to put our faces on a webpage. I have always been more eager to collect customer testimonials and share what they have to say about us. Maybe I'm just shy.
- luckylion 7y ago
  It's not even about putting your face onto it, that's understandable. It's just that there's nothing. Sure, you can dig around, find the termly-page and then at the end find some info, but that looks so scammy to me, while the rest of the page doesn't give me that vibe at all. Typically, I associate "we don't tell you who we are" with grey/black stuff. A DDOS service would only provide an email address for obvious reasons. But for a company? If somebody wants to sue you, they will find out who you are in any case. I wouldn't expect pictures, CVs etc, but a contact page that doesn't list a company/individual name and a street address triggers two feelings: a) scam or b) run from a bedroom. Neither makes me want to trust you with critical infrastructure (and here's where I'm irrational: seeing a company name and address is enough, unless there's some suspicion, I won't even dig into it to see whether the company or address actually exists). As I mentioned, it's not specific to you at all, a lot of SaaS companies do this, and I don't understand it. Might be a cultural thing. In Germany, you're breaking the law if you're running a commercial site and are not clearly stating who you are, so maybe that's why alarms are ringing in my head when I don't see it.